"Hhh... Wuzzit?" he asked sleepily.

 

"Nrf," replied his wife, who had been snoring lightly beside him.

 

The bedroom was dark, and there was no sign of whatever had awakened him. It was quiet out; it was a very quiet neighborhood. That's why they'd moved here in the first place, despite the steep mortgage. That last place... he shuddered.

 

He was awake, and now his brain was firing up. He sighed, got up, and padded out to make himself a cup of hot tea. Five minutes later, he was seated in front of his computer, fingers flying. It had been a great dream, and if he could just get the words down before the memory faded, it would make for an excellent story, one he could submit to one of the major magazines.

 

When he finished, it was still dark out. He stretched, then padded back into the bedroom and slid between the sheets, carefully so as not to wake his wife. Content, feeling like he'd stolen a march on life, he smiled and dozed off.

 

* * *

 

"Hhh... Wuzzit?" he asked sleepily.

 

"Nrf," replied his wife, who had been snoring lightly beside him.

 

The bedroom was dark, and there was no sign of whatever had awakened him...

 

* * *

 

Subject K, 22 Jan 23, 0824 hrs

Dream - wake - write - dream cycle successful. Output increased to 2400 words per hour, with a record 19 hours of production per day. 126th repetition of cycle shows no signs of decrease in either quantity or quality. However, brain glucose levels continue to slide, and may require intervention. Note to monitor pending correction.

 

* * *

 

The janitor loved working overnights. Part of it was, he was free to set his own pace; if he felt like rushing, he could round off his shift with his feet up. Mostly, it was the peace and quiet: just him and the hum of the servers. In his previous career he'd been a commodities trader until his breakdown; here, there were no decisions, no stress. It was heavenly. The fact that they actually paid him for this, he reckoned as his very favorite joke. So what if it was janitorial work; someone had to do the mucky jobs.

 

Something felt off in the big lab tonight, though, and he had nearly finished the floors before he realized what it was: A small red light was flashing near one of the monitors. Nothing like that had ever happened in here before, not during his hours, anyway. He went over to take a look.

 

In this part of the lab, the server banks were hooked up to large metal objects that looked like big propane tanks — some kind of high-end cooling system, maybe, since there were all these ducts and pipes running everywhere. Nothing seemed obviously wrong; there were no suspicious puddles or popping sparks, just the flashing red light. As he got closer, he could see there was no identifying label. Perhaps he could find out something from the monitor. He reached for the nearest keyboard, hesitated a moment, and then pressed a Shift key. Can't hurt anything, just pressing Shift, right?

 

The monitor came to life. The right side was filled with rows of numbers, each with an incomprehensible description. Near one marked GlBr was a flashing light that matched the one on the desk; it was still meaningless to him, but at least he felt some progress had been made.

 

His attention was drawn to the rows of text on the left. At first he'd thought them gibberish, but after a moment he perceived some meaning. They reminded him of bad closed-captioning on the evening news, except the word "HELP" repeated itself frequently. It struck him that this might be a real person somewhere, and he sat heavily on the desk chair. A flashing cursor on a reply line caught his eye. Without any conscious thought involved, he reached up to the keyboard and tapped in "Hello?"

 

The word popped up in a chat bubble on the screen, but nothing else happened.

 

He tried again.

 

This time, there was a response. "IS SOMEONE THERE"

 

"Yes. Do you need help?"

 

"ITS DARK AND I CANT MOVE WHO ARE YOU"

 

"Everyone's gone home for the night. I'll see if I can get someone. Hang on."

 

"IT'S DARK WHERES MY WIFE WHERES MY WIFE SARAH AAAAAA HELP AAAAAA HELP SOMEONE HELP SOMEONE HELP MEEEE"

 

The characters kept scrolling on and on. But what to do? There were no telephones on this level, no handy instructions or offices marked Supervisor. His own boss was at home asleep and usually kept his phone off the hook; nobody would get a message from him until noon if then.

 

His darting eyes were arrested; there on the screen was a button marked EMERG DEC. He didn't know what a DEC was, but this was an EMERG if he'd ever seen one. He moved the mouse over the button and clicked.

 

A message box popped up on the screen: "EMERG DEC Y/N"

 

Oh, what the hell. He clicked Y.

 

Buzzers sounded; lights flashed. A timer appeared on the screen, counting down sixty seconds. The janitor stood, looking around wildly, the sour taste of panic flooding his mouth. He had the sudden urge to take his mops and go, but he found his legs wouldn't obey.

 

There was a loud hiss, and one of the large cylinders jetted a nauseating steam. He coughed and stepped closer. The end cap rotated, then shot open; thick pinkish liquid flooded across the floor. Inside, on a harness, covered in tubes and needles, was... Could that be... Were those... eyes?!

 

"Oh, my God!" cried the janitor, and fainted.

 

* * *

 

Subject K, 24 Jan 23, 0417 hrs

Experiment abruptly terminated: accidental emergency decantation by custodian. Information contained by Security; see new subject designated Q in Commodities section. Records show brain glucose levels had dropped below minimum and the simulation had ended some hours previously. Subject unrecoverable.